Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 38

Sacrificial address offered to General Su Dingfang (蘇挺方)祭蘇挺方將軍文

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 175 Chinese characters · reading time 1.8 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 38 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

云云。夫外國之不賓中國久矣。太宗將臣伏萬國。混一文軌。使將軍統師。侵軼我高麗。將軍不幸駐騶騎于我國。便未西轅。故有遺祠在玆。且外國不賓。常理也。文皇帝猶憤然怒作。使勞師遠役。迺至自將而經略。是將軍所識也。况東京者。是我國之陪邑也。敢擧兵叛國。呀喙吠主。爲狗畜所尙不爲。未識將軍之意。其視何如也。伏望酌今古所以伐下國輕重之宜。奮將軍昔日虎步鷹瞵之威。俾官軍汛掃醜俗。不日班師。則將軍雖以客魂。得食於此。無愧矣。

And so forth. In general it is long since the outer countries ceased to submit to China. Taizong (太宗), being about to make the ten thousand countries bow down as his subjects and bring writing and institutions together into one, had the general lead troops and strike at our Goryeo. The general unhappily halted his horse in our country and could not turn his carriage westward at once, and so there is a shrine left here.

Again, that the outer countries do not submit is an ever-present principle; yet Emperor Wen (文皇帝) still flared into anger and put his soldiers to toil and made them fight far off, and came in the end to leading and governing the army himself. This is what the general knows.

How much the more since the Eastern Capital (東京) is a district belonging to our country. It has dared to raise troops and revolt against the kingdom, and it opens its maw and barks at its master — a thing that even dogs and beasts would not do. I do not know how this appears to the general's mind.

Prostrate I pray that you reckon the fitness of light and of heavy in striking at a lower kingdom, in old times and now; and that you shake out the majesty with which the general of old strode like a tiger and glared like a hawk, so that the government troops sweep away a foul custom and turn the soldiers home within a few days. Then the general, though he receive sacrifices here as a wandering soul, will have nothing to be ashamed of.

‹ Text for the offering of a horse to the Great King of Mount Gong (公山)Contents Sacrificial address offered to the Eastern and Western Peaks of Gyeongju (慶州) ›Listen to this piece